It's common knowledge that baseball clubhouses sometimes veer into boy's club territory. (Just ask the White Sox!) And, after some unfortunate events last season, teams took a long hard look at their clubhouse alcohol policies. Nowadays, things just ain't the same.

Well, Todd Jones longs for those lost times when you got drunk after a ballgame, damn it.

... it's not the same today as it was 15 or 20 years ago.

Guys nowadays show up earlier than we used to and leave way earlier than we used to. I can remember when guys would hang around until 2 or 3 in the morning after every game. An older player would call a team meeting, so to speak, and guys would grab a garbage can full of whatever guys drink, sit down and figure out whatever was going on that particular night. If it was 2 a.m. when everything was figured out, then everybody would shower and leave. If it was 4 a.m., then it was 4 a.m. The best times in my career have been with teammates figuring it out. Now, any figuring out that needs to be done is taken care of before the game.

Yes Todd: "figuring it out" is what it's all about. In fact, I plan on "figuring it out" with my friends tonight and tomorrow night . Some of the best times of my life, too. See: ballplayers are just like you and me.

Remember earlier this week when I told you about how happy playing in the outfield makes Gary Sheffield? How the grass looks greener, the air smells sweeter, the ball looks bigger, and life just seems better for Gary when he's not relegated to a role as a designated hitter. I hope Gary cherished those memories of chasing down fly balls, because he's not going to get the chance to do it too much in the near future.

The Black Lung has pulled the plug on the experiment.

"His shoulder isn't right, and I don't think it's made any better by playing the outfield, because he can barely lob the ball in," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Wednesday. "The longer I think about it, it doesn't make sense that the shoulder can get better when you're playing, swinging and having to throw than serving as DH."

For his part, while he's not exactly happy about it, Sheffield understands the move and isn't going to complain about it. Though if he continues to lose playing time because of it, that might change. Sheff was out of the lineup yesterday, and will be in it today, but he's only going to play one game this weekend as the Tigers go to Arizona and won't get to use a DH.

Another source of frustration for Gary may come from the fact that Leyland still doesn't really know what he's going to do with Sheffield in the future.

"I kind of have to play that by ear. That's a tough situation for him, because he doesn't want to put me in that situation and I don't want to be in that situation.

"I don't really know what to do, to be honest with you. I'm confused."

Which is always what you want to hear from your manager.

Now that we're about a quarter of the way into the season, it's a lot easier to start judging teams based on what we've seen from them and their performance. When the Tigers started the season 0-7, it was easy to say that they sucked, but really, we had no idea. We had to see them play a lot more before making that judgment.

Now that they're about 40 games into the season, you can make a lot more of an educated guess as to how things are going to work out in Detroit. You see that the offense is still struggling, particularly with runners in scoring position, and that the pitching is still inconsistent. You also see that the Tigers are 16-22, the second worst record in the American League, but are only 4.5 games out of first. So that means they aren't exactly out of this thing yet, and Jim Leyland knows it.

"I had a take on this team before the season started," Leyland said. "It hasn't taken 40 games. We just haven't put it together offensively the way I thought we would, but I think we still will. At some point, it's going to happen.

"Plus, I think our starting pitching is going to get better. Because of various concerns, we didn't push them quite as hard in spring training, so I think they were a little bit behind when the season started. But I think they're beginning to catch up."

I tend to agree with Leyland here. While I'm just as surprised and disappointed by the Tigers start to the season, I still don't think there's anyway that the team can keep playing so poorly. There's just too much talent on the roster from top to bottom for it to continue for six months. Still, I'd be a lot more confident in their ability to turn things around if they had any prospects left on the farm that they could use to add another pitcher to the rotation. Though that pitcher could already be in the organization in Rick Porcello.

Okay, so we're nearly a quarter into the season, and we're all still waiting for the Detroit Tigers to get things going. I'm not sure how long we're going to have to keep waiting, or if the Tigers are ever even going to get out of the cellar, but they may have taken a step towards getting on track.

Gary Sheffield has never been shy when it comes to speaking his mind, and he'd been letting Jim Leyland know that he'd much rather be out in the field than relegated to nothing but a designated hitter. Well, going into the weekend Leyland finally listened to Sheffield, and put him out in left.

Sheffield responded by going 5-for-15 over the Tigers latest homestand, and raised his batting average 23 points in the process. Sure, it's still only at .208, but it's a start.

"I say it all the time. It's just tough at DH to have that fire going, and intensity with which I play," Sheffield said. "I never accepted that I was just a pure DH."

The problem is that Sheffield's right shoulder still bothers him from time to time, and he's still in the process of rehabbing it. That means he's not going to be able to play left field everyday, because his throwing arm is going to become a problem. The Tigers are already having enough trouble keeping the other team from scoring, and adding another liability in the outfield won't help.

Still, if Sheffield's bat only comes alive when he's playing the field, any damage he may cause out in left will probably be more than offset by the damage he can do with his bat.

Coming into the season, the Tigers were everyone's darlings. Why not? They had a ridiculous offense and a starting rotation capable of piling up the wins with the large expected run support. The problems that most overlooked were that the bullpen is awful (with injuries to Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya the main benefactors), Dontrelle Willis sucks, and Kenny Rogers is ancient. Personally, I didn't like them as much as others because of all this. Still, though, no one expected Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman to struggle this mightily. Both should have been armed and ready for a big season.

Bonderman is still only 25 -- doesn't it seem like he's been around forever? -- and has shown the ability to strikeout hitters (202 K in '07) and control his pitches (only averaged 56 BB/season from '05-'07) with the best. His ERA has never been stellar, but with a natural progression and the bashers supporting him you had to expect he'd be able to garner the victories in '08.

Verlander is also 25, and he's a phenom. He won 35 games in the past two years while upping his punchouts to 183 last year in just over 200 innings. With a triple digit heater and some filthy off-speeders, you'd figure him for the Cy Young race this season.

Instead, something is wrong. With both of them.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Arizona Diamondbacks (22-12) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (20-15) - 3:40PM Est.

If I were a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, I'd probably just skip the trip to Chase Field and go straight to the airport to catch my flight to San Francisco. I mean, Brandon Webb is starting for the Diamondbacks this afternoon, so you already know you're going to lose, why waste your time?

Webb has won his first seven starts of the season, which makes him 7-0, and has an ERA of 2.49 while doing so. Now he's looking to get off to the fastest start ever by an Arizona pitcher, as he's already tied Randy Johnson's mark with his first seven starts. The Big Unit accomplished his feat in 2000, and then went on to win the second of the four straight Cy Youngs he won for the DBacks.

The crazy thing is, if Webb does win today and move to 8-0, it may set a team record for the quickest to eight wins, but it won't even be the first time in Brandon's career he's started a season 8-0. He did it in 2006, though it took him eleven starts, and went on to win his own Cy Young award.

When Jim Leyland announced a few weeks ago that he would be moving Miguel Cabrera from third to first base, not too many people were surprised. It's not exactly breaking news that Miguel isn't that good of a third baseman, and is probably better suited for first base.

Still, that doesn't mean the transition has been easy on Cabrera, so that's why Leyland was out there with him before yesterday's game helping him get acclimated to the new position. Leyland was out on the field with Miguel for about 10 minutes yesterday, firing balls at him out of a machine from second base.

"I want to make sure that he (Cabrera) knows that I'm aware we're trying to help him," Leyland said. "I think it's important sometimes when the manager shows up.

"There is no way, shape or form that I will ever back down -- ever -- from moving Cabrera to first base. That is Cabrera's position. There is no doubt in the history of baseball that is his position. I will argue it with anybody. That is where he needs to play, and he should be outstanding.

"No. 1, he's got great hands -- he digs the balls out of the dirt and he shouldn't drop throws. No. 2, he's a perfect huge target for someone to throw to. (And) you don't quite need the quickness there you do somewhere else."

In other words, Miguel is kinda big and slow.

The Tigers and Leyland have to try anything at this point, because pitching and offense haven't been the team's only problems this season. They're not exactly dazzling anybody with their defense at this point either, which certainly doesn't help matters, as they've committed 23 errors and have a fielding percentage of .981. And that's just on the balls they've been able to get to.

Here's our "Mystery Tiger". First person to get it correctly gets a prize of my choosing.

After a horrible start the Tigers went on a bit of a tear. More recently they have lost 3 straight and look like crap again. I don't know which direction they're going to go in, but it most definitely won't be a straight line. After Jim Leyland's recent decision to move pitcher Kenny Rogers to centerfield many sports analysts believe the Tigers are desperate. I think it means the Tigers are trying to make baseball more interesting. It also explains why Gary Sheffield is having his skin dyed and peeled.

THE ESSENTIALS
The Red Sox (20-13) start Daisuke Matsuzaka (4-0)
The Tigers (14-18) start Jeremy Bonderman (2-2)

ANALYSIS
A Tiger would, I assume, tear a pair of socks to shreds. But then, what's the significance of the "Sox" being red? Is the dye tainted? Are they covered in the blood of unsuspecting predators? There might be more than meets the eye. Maybe the Tigers will wear the socks and they can be friends.

PREDICTION
Red Sox over Tigers 6-4.

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After the Tigers lost to the Twins on Saturday, manager Jim Leyland put out his cigarette and told the reporters around him that he would be making changes to his lineup for Sunday's game. Then Sunday came around, and The Black Lung turned in the same lineup card he'd been turning in all season. His team rewarded him for his faith by scoring six runs in the first inning off of Minnesota's Boof Bonser.

Then the Tigers bullpen reared it's ugly head, and Detroit ended up blowing that early lead and losing 7-6, dropping them back into last place in the AL Central. Now The Black Lung is ready to make those changes again.

"We can be tough to watch sometimes. I'm going to shake things up pretty shortly, I think," he said. "There will be no personnel changes or player movement. Same pieces, but quite a bit different (order). For whatever reason, we haven't had that killer instinct.

"I just think our offense is better than this. I know it is. There's no doubt in my mind.

"We can lull you to sleep at times, and I can live with that. But that's why we have to hit. That's what we're supposed to be able to do. I don't know why, but we haven't had the sense of urgency that we need."

Sunday really was a perfect microcosm of how the Tigers lineup has worked this season. They started the game by scoring runs at a record pace, and then completely shut off for the next 8 innings. It's the way things have gone all season as one day the Tigers will score one run, follow that up with 15, and get shut out the day after that. Poor Jimmy's gone from smoking two packs a day to four and a half.

For anyone with allergies, it's a tough time to be in the Midwest. Everything's blooming and dusty, leading to swollen eyes and scratchy throats and an unspeakable excess of phlegm. It's totally disgusting.

Guess what? Professional baseball players feel the pain, too. Just take Curtis Granderson, whose allergies have officially surpassed his injured hand on the scale of things that annoy him (via MLBTR):

For the most part the hand is feeling okay, the body and everything is struggling, my allergies are killing me right now, just trying to fit in and fall back into place, just getting at-bats.

I empathize, and I spend most of my working hours in modern, climate-controlled buildings. Curtis spends his working hours in the midst of dust and grass and pollen in major league outfields. Yep ... that could get pretty irritating.

Anyway, it's great to see that baseball players are just like you and me. Except for the wild, excessive wealth. That's a main difference.